MU's Clemons remains a mystery man

Star guard has baggage, little history of violence

Posted: Tuesday, February 04, 2003

By The Associated Press

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Claims that Missouri standout Ricky Clemons choked a woman are uncharacteristic of an athlete who -- while mysterious to many -- never showed violent tendencies, those familiar with him told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for a copyright story.

The newspaper, in Sunday's editions, reported that even those who acknowledge Clemons has plenty of baggage say Missouri's second-leading scorer has never lashed out.

"(Assault) is totally outside his personality," said Rod Green, a North Carolina accountant whom Clemons considers a big brother.

Enique Eugene "Ricky" Clemons, in his first season at Missouri, was arrested Jan. 17 on a charge of second-degree domestic assault. Authorities accuse him of choking, shoving and restraining Jessica Bunge, of St. Clair, on Jan. 16 at his off-campus Columbia apartment, at times pulling her hair and leaving her with a bloody nose.

Clemons, 22, was suspended for one game, though he was reinstated after Missouri's 20-point loss at Oklahoma State. He faces a Feb. 11 arraignment.

He has denied the allegation.

Still, the subsequent revelation of a charge that he choked and struck another woman in July 2001 in Idaho furthered scrutiny of Clemons. That charge was never prosecuted because the woman didn't respond to a request to testify.

"It could be Jekyll and Hyde, you don't know, but I just never saw the mean, aggressive side of him," said Shelwyn Klutz, coach at Kannapolis (N.C.) A.L. Brown High School, where Klutz was an assistant during a year Clemons spent there.

Basketball, Klutz said, is Clemons' "salvation."

Perhaps by design, Clemons is a mystery: His profile in Missouri's media guide lists no parents or birthdate -- common information for every other Tiger. It does suggest that he led the nation in scoring in 1999-2000, "at better than 35 points a game," at Bonner Academy in Raleigh.

But Bonner isn't eligible for high school rankings because it has allowed over-age and fifth-year players, according to the Student Sports National Boys Basketball Record Book. The service also says the nation's leading scorer that season was an Alabama player who averaged 40.4 points a game.

Missouri spokesman Chad Moller couldn't recall from where the information came, but he didn't believe Clemons was the source.

Still, Clemons apparently has generated some misinformation about himself.

In a 2001 interview with the Times-News of Twin Falls, Idaho, where he attended the College of Southern Idaho, Clemons vividly described playing in Alaska when he was at Oak Hill (Va.) Academy.

"It was snowing, cold and dark," Clemons said then. "We were driving, and we saw this 8-foot moose just walking around."

But Clemons never went to Alaska with Oak Hill Academy, said Lisa Smith, coach Steve Smith's wife. He was enrolled there only for a 1997 summer session before deciding to leave and "never put on an Oak Hill uniform," she said.

And while Clemons once told the Idaho newspaper his mother was killed by a drunken driver when he was 7, multiple sources told the Post-Dispatch the woman is alive and, for various reasons, not part of Clemons' life.

Clemons evidently never knew his father, the Post-Dispatch said, and at some point he apparently moved in with his grandmother but rarely stayed with her near Charlotte, where Clemons spent most of his youth in a neighborhood known as drug-infested and dangerous.

Those who know him say that in his teens, Clemons slept, among other places, in the homes of coaches, a local college's dorm, in an orphanage and in an abandoned building.

"I'm not sure he had a home," said Bobby Jones, a former NBA player who coached Clemons briefly at Charlotte Christian. "I mean, he just came from a different world."

Between being expelled from Charlotte Christian midway through the 1997-98 school year and enrolling at Bonner in the summer of 1999, Clemons was out of school and essentially homeless.

Making a commitment to attend Missouri was the happiest day of Clemons' life, said Marvin Reed, who coached Clemons at Bonner and considers Clemons his best friend.

"His life is indescribable," said Richard Moore, a former North Carolina state representative and teacher who said Clemons lived with him for about a year.

"I know I probably wasn't the best influence on Ricky in a lot of ways, but I really tried to help," said Moore, worried about the emotional damage he might have inflicted on Clemons.

In 2000, a grand jury accused Moore of six sex crimes involving former students between September 1995 and April 1999.

Among the charges, according to court documents: Moore tried to sexually assault Clemons "by force and against his will." Moore later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge, got a suspended sentence and agreed to resign from the North Carolina General Assembly, get counseling, apologize in writing to his victims and not have contact with any of them or their families.